It's been a week since I came back from Prague, but I haven't had time to write with Christmas coming up, my birthday and the online grind where I'm desperately trying secure winning the Finnish PocketFives OPOY race this year. It's pretty intense but I think my lead is enough with only one Sunday left this year, especially as it's Sunday the 25th of December and I don't think most guys will be playing that day. I'm not entirely sure how the formula works, but based on a gut feeling I think someone has to either grind like crazy or win something big to beat me. If I've managed to get a 250 point lead over 354 days, it shouldn't be easy to gain that many points in just 11 days left, right? And I'm going to grind probably about seven more days this year too. You can look at the rankings here by clicking at the Finnish sortable rankings on the right: http://www.pocketfives.com/sortable-rankings/

I had a pretty good shot at boosting my rankings yesterday when I was comfortably deep in many Sunday majors. I started to run bad at a pretty critical moment though. First I stone bubbled both of the 300EUR highrollers I played, getting 31st with 30 paid and 37th with 36 paid. The only really, really deep run I got was in the iPoker $215. I was in the top ten from 250 players left or something, and ended up being 13th out of 1100+ players. I got something stupid like $1700 when the winner, MTT legend Seabeast got $44k. I wouldn't mind it otherwise, but the way in which I busted what was basically a guaranteed final table and a LOT of much-needed OPOY points was pretty brutal.

First, I had been 3-betting some stupid Finnish player a couple of times with air and he had folded. I had been inducing him because I just knew he'd lose it the next time, so I was waiting for a hand I could 3bet/call against him. I finally got my spot when he opened UTG about 30BB deep (I covered) and I had AK UTG+1. It was a bit dumb, because I didn't think he could possibly stupid enough to spazz here in a 10-handed table with 20 players left in a major, but obviously I went for the 3-bet/call anyway. He snap jammed with deuces in what was one of the worst blow-ups I've seen in a long time. I was never ever bluffing there and my range for 3-betting was incredibly tight, so while that was a flip on paper it was godawful from him and it's so wrong he got rewarded when I lost the flip.

Then finally my exit hand with 13 players left. A player who was clearly scared money opened UTG+1 with a minraise, and I had 20BB on the big blind. Folded to me with pocket sevens, and I had to call 20k into over 100k, so it's a clear setmine against a super nitty range against which I'm always going to get value if I get it in. I flopped a set on 764, we got it in and he had pocket eights. Turn 3, river... 5. GG.

Anyway, I'm going to finish the Prague stuff now before I forget about it all. There aren't many positive things to tell, though.

I told about my awful hotel in the first entry and how the room was insanely cold, right? It turned out that my snap move to Hilton wasn't snappy enough, as I had still managed to catch a cold. I had a bit of a fever already on the WPT day 2, and it only got worse after that.

When I was playing the EPT satellite on the off day between my WPT bustout and EPT day one I was already really sick and dizzy. I wouldn't have played it at all had it not been at the Hilton so that I was able to simply take the elevator to the casino. The buy-in was 500 euros with one 500 euro rebuy and no add-on. I was so ill that I don't really remember much from the tournament, except for three things:

1) Everyone seemed insanely bad, and that was the easiest 5300EUR seat I've ever won anywhere.

2) I met 2+2er Gags30 for the first time, when he was on my left at my last table without me knowing it was him.

3) I got two silly spots near the bubble where I made nitty folds since it was a satellite. First I folded AQs in the BB to a 7BB shove when I had about 14BB and the bubble was two spots away. Then I open folded QQ with 13BB on the exact bubble from UTG.

I got a seat really easily and it only took me about four hours. Easy game. That was the first of my two scores of a similar amount I managed to get in Prague.

I played the EPT 5k on day 1A on the next day. I saw a lot high stakes players all around on that day and it seemed that the field wouldn't be anywhere near as soft as I thought it would be. And on top of that I was really, really sick now. I had 39,6c of fever when I walked down to the casino according to the Czech thermometer I had bought. I had hardly slept at all because I couldn't find a pharmacy on the night before and the feeling in my throat felt like I had swallowed a cactus. I definitely was not in a shape to play my A-, or even my B-game, but I didn't have a choice.

Luckily I got a really good table draw. Only a couple of young players, and they turned out to be nits too, and several 50-year old Greek and Italian players who were awful. I decided that since it's a long, deep tournament, I was feeling awful and I couldn't think clearly I'd save the big bluffs for later and play relatively solid.

This turned out to be a good plan, as I got a couple of massive donations from some Greek guy. In the first one I 3-bet him with AJo and fired three big barrels on Jxxxx and was good. In the second one I 3-bet again with AK with the king of hearts. He called and the flop came Ah3h8c. He donkbet big and I called. Turn 4h, he donkbet again and I called. River was the beautiful Th giving me the nuts, he check-called my almost pot-sized bet and didn't show.

I played a fun hand against one of the young nits soon after, copy-pasted from 2+2:

Villain is an online MTTer based on his appearance and what he's done at the table but I don't recognize him, 25 year oldish euro guy. He doesn't seem to be the type to 3-bet bluff air, but rather 3-bets light with playable hands like JTs type stuff, also flats them sometimes. I think his flatting range here contains most broadway combos, pairs, suited aces, possibly even AQ. He seems to be on the solid side and hasn't been out of line at all. We haven't been to big pots together, but I've managed to do pretty well in general and everything's gone my way so far so I think he probably gives me respect for knowing what I'm doing. BTN is a random live fish who loves to flat pre, almost never folds his button, but plays fit/fold post. He's fired huge bets with made hands and I doubt he ever has anything in this hand.

100/200/, I've got 60k+, both villains around 35k.

I open from MP to 500 with red 99, villain flats CO, the fish flats BTN, the rest fold.

Flop Ah2d2c (1800)
I elect to check, villain checks, fish checks

Turn 6d (1800)
I check, villain bets 1050, the fish folds, I call.

River Kd (3900)
I check, he bets 3500 which I'm sure he realizes is a big bet, I think about it for a bit and throw in 11k and change. He thinks for a while and folds.

In a perfect world I know my line kind of sucks, because I only rep KK (although I think I rep that really well), slowplayed aces, slowplayed quads, extremely oddly played 66 or AK or to some people maybe a good backdoor flush although I would never have played it this way. However in a big live tournament against someone who's clearly playing over his head and is scared BUT who also understands a thing or two about MTTs I think it's a pretty cool bluff. If I put myself in his shoes, I'd have a pretty hard time calling a 55BB river check-raise on a relatively bricky board for a third of my stack with a low backdoor flush and I'd snap fold an ace. I think he can reasonably have a lot of aces that he's trying to get me off a chop with. Melanie Weisner pointed out an interesting point though, when she said she'd like this more if villain had bet less or more. I wholeheartedly agree. Against a bet of over the pot this would be an absolutely genius bluff, and against a smaller bet it'd be a pretty standard one. Anyway, I still kind of like my play. Maybe it's a bit optimistic to think he'd ever fold a flush, but I'm pretty sure he had an ace and he folded pretty fast, so I'm happy with the results at the least.

After the hand it didn't go so well. I had got the aggressive image anyway, not that I would have really laggied it up that much, but more because I just had a good card run and didn't have show many hands. My pre-flop card run continued and I found playable hands every other hand, but I couldn't hit any flops and most of my bluff attempts didn't work. I went down from 70k (when the average was still just 30k) to about 50k without anything special, and my stack surfed between 40k and 70k for the remainder of the night. I played one more big hand before bagging the chips, again pasted from 2+2:

We are mid-way through day one. We started with 30k, I have almost 70k. Villain1 has 44k and Villain2 about 30k.

Villain1 is the guy from the previous hand. I know nothing about villain2, he sat down an orbit ago, hasn't played a hand, he looks like he's from Israel or maybe like Italy or Greece and is ~25 but he's got headphones and looks like someone who has a clue (no bling bling but instead a hoodie).

I have an ok image, I've played a pretty solid 16/14 or whatever, I have 3-bet/folded just a couple of times. I haven't been barreley at all either. Villain1 has showed absolutely no interest in playing back at me whenever I've opened, he hasn't 3-bet me once despite having had about 30 good spots to do so. Based on how he plays pre-flop I think he always flats pairs and KQs KJs type stuff, maybe/probably JTs QTs KTs, and would almost certainly fold the offsuit versions of those hands.

250/500/50. Folded to me in the CO, I make it my standard 1100 with PRAWNS!!!, in other words 3d 3h. Villain1 from SB calls, Villain2 from BB calls.

Flop Th5s3c (3700)
Checked to me, I make it 2250, Villain1 thinks about it for a bit and calls, Villain2 thinks about it for a bit also and calls. They both give the vibe where they are unsure what they should do here.

Turn Kd (8200)
Checked to me, I check back. Basically I'm sure that if I bet here, V1 will fold everything except precisely KT or 55 (or TT), and there are only 2 combos of KTs and he probably folds KTo pre-flop, and if he check-raises me I'm going hate my life and probably fold (?). Even that it's a classic bluff card he's just not going to call with a ten, as he's just such a nit/scared money. It also seems pretty unlikely to be able to take V2 to three streets of valuetown unless he has exactly KT. and neither of them seems capable of running a huge check-raise bluff, so I check back.

River comes 8d (8200) V1 checks, V2 bets 5500, V1 still seems interested in the hand and I have a very tough decision. I think this could very well be a bluff, as it seems both V1 and me have given up the hand. It's going to be hard for me to get value from either by raising. Basically I have to figure out whether it's more likely to get V1 to call too by calling or to get either of them to call if I raise. If I raise, V1 is never going to call with anything I can beat, and V2 would have to be quite a hero to do that. If I raised, I'd make it pretty much the minimum, say 6500 more. If I call here, I think V1 will call something like 30-35% of the time, so V2 would have to call my raise something like (I can't be arsed to do the exact math) something like 27-30% to make raising here more profitable than calling. I didn't think it would happen as he's bluffing so much, so I tried my best to look as uncomfortable as possible and called. V1 tanked for the longest time and finally folded something that was almost certainly a ten. V1 instantly mucked, and as per the EPT rules I didn't have to show either. I obviously showed just one of my treys, and neither of the villains looked happy.

For the last couple of levels I was starting to feel worse and worse and pretty much just blinded down being both card-dead and braindead. I bagged 55k chips which was slightly above average and a comfortable 55BB going into the day two.